***
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man."
Heraclitus
***
It's oddly heartbreaking to leave the ranch when leave is over.
Jake and Javy stay a few days after everyone else, not returning to North Island for another week.
And it's during that week that Cyclone reveals the Daggers have been made a permanent squadron based out of North Island. Not only are they to remain on alert for high-level missions, but they'll also assist with instruction at Top Gun.
They're thrilled, and Bradley's excited high isn't damped when Jake doesn't respond to the group chat with the news.
Maverick, for all his success, is permanently ordered to the squadron, and though no one comes out and says it, they've all been in the military long enough to realize he's going to retire from there.
If he's disappointed, he never lets them see it, but even Ice's influence only goes so far, and Ice is starting to look forward to his own retirement in a few years.
Bradley has a list of things to do before Jake and Javy return.
Clean his parent's house.
Get the Bronco fixed and cleaned so Jake won't bitch about riding in it.
Get extra keys made and his Navy paperwork updated.
Jake and Javy are headed straight back to the barracks when they return because they both realized it's too much too fast, and Bradley's looking forward to actually dating Jake.
His mother always talked about the thrill of the early days of dating his father, and Bradley has plans.
He needs to sit down and talk to Mav and Ice.
Thankfully, the nerves have faded over that, and they're all kind of looking forward to it.
He and Nat have silently dropped their conversation from the ranch and returned to their friendship from before the mission, and her comment that she's meeting up with an old friend from flight school reminds Bradley that he needs to let someone else know he's off the market.
The girl he was texting when he got the orders to North Island. They'd never explicitly agreed they were dating or exclusive in any way, and Bradley had warned her he might be out of contact for a while and to move on if she wanted, but he feels like she still deserves to know.
Just to make the new start fresh and clean.
And to let her know he survived. They were friends first, and Bradley thinks they can fall back into that with little awkwardness.
***
The first hick-up in all their plans is when Cyclone refuses to name a Flight Commander the same day he announces they'll be staying at North Island.
Bradley and Nat are both in the running, according to gossip and their service records.
Maverick is the obvious choice, but Bradley knows he'd turn it down if it was offered.
Reuben should be in consideration; they all agree, and they spend a few days debating in the mess hall before they finally find out what the hold-up is.
Cyclone nominated Jake.
But Jake's former Squadron Commander, Cole Hauser, refused to release Jake and Javy for the reassignment, and now there's a bureaucratic battle happening above their heads to decide which squadron Jake and Javy end up in.
When Bradley asks Ice why he can't just step in, he gets a lecture about nepotism and privileges that he acknowledges he deserved, and Ice confides that the issue is that Jake and Javy have expressed a desire to return to the Vigilantes, giving Hauser ammunition someone of his rank wouldn't normally have against someone of Cyclone or Ice's rank.
Despite his write-up for disobeying orders during the mission, Jake's the hero of the hour, and the higher-ups are keen to keep their poster boy happy.
The deal was clear cut from the beginning that they were only on temporary loan, and since they both occupy leadership positions in the Vigilantes, losing them would cause significant upheaval in one of the Navy's largest combat-ready wings.
Bradley gets stuck on the fact that they don't want to stay on North Island, and when word reaches the rest of the Daggers, because it always does, the feeling of betrayal is, honestly, exaggerated given how short a time they've been together, but no less real.
Despite their inability to justify being upset about it, Jake and Javy end up with a barrage of texts trying to argue them around in the group chat until Jake, naturally, picks a fight.
Surprised you lot are so gung-ho to have us back, considering that makes me your boss.
It's a pretty impressive fight, over text message anyway, because as soon as Cyclone hears about it, he calls a meeting and makes it very clear none of them get a vote, and Jake will be Flight Commander if he returns.
There's a small part of Bradley and Nat that are stung by the immediate dismissal. They've both got better records for teamwork and a few successful leadership stints under their belts, and they're both on track for promotion.
Cyclone's apparent refusal to consider them is actually kind of insulting.
Bradley doesn't think Jake would be bad at it, kind of a mini-Cyclone or Ice if he's objective, and Nat is smart enough not to let her personal feelings about Bradley and Jake interfere when she admits she feels overlooked after the trouble Jake had integrating with the team during training.
At least this explains why Jake has been refusing to talk to Bradley over text.
It's a conversation best had in person.
And why Javy texted him a threat to get his head on straight before they got back.
Bradley's starting to wonder if Javy's ever going to like him.
***
Pride, goeth before the fall.
Natasha's parents said that all the time when she was growing up.
Sometimes, they were serious, and sometimes, they were just trying to illustrate to a teenager that the world wasn't just about them.
She's not sure which lesson stuck, but it did, and Natasha has been careful ever since she made it into the Navy to keep her pride out of her choices and opinions.
She works her ass off to be one of the best, to play with the boys like that old song Rooster loves to sing says, and she's done a good job of it.
That said, it hurts that Cyclone has dismissed her so easily.
It's far from the first time she's been shuffled aside for a man. At least time, Jake is just as skilled and qualified as her, and not some moron whose only advantage is balls instead of ovaries.
It's easier to talk to Julia about it now than Bradley since she truly doesn't want to harm his relationship with Jake.
Julia had been her first roommate at the Academy and an unrelenting ally as Natasha learned to navigate the military.
Compared to Nat's lack of family military history, Julia's long line of service had seemed honorable and romantic until Natasha realized just how much pressure it put on the other woman.
The pressure to represent and achieve seemed almost suffocating, and they'd eventually bonded over the struggle.
Natasha had eventually managed to silence her own demons in that regard, her family was supportive even if they didn't quite understand, but Julia had never managed to break away from hers. Even now, whenever she joined a new unit, the first comments were about her family legacy and what she was doing to it.
Thus far, it had all been good, but Nat knew the other women lived in fear of the day that wasn't the case.
It's nice and incredibly helpful to be able to talk to someone outside their group about what's happening. Julia's always been a great sounding board when Natasha's weighing her choices, and her advice is just as sound this time.
If Natasha wants to continue to develop as a pilot, she needs to stay where she is.
If she wants to jump into leadership, she needs to move on.
Natasha and Jake might have their personal differences, but there's no doubt on paper that he's more qualified to be Flight Commander.
And Natasha finds as she talks through it with Julia that she doesn't disagree. Aside from Jake's tendency to be an asshole and the previous reputation that earned him his callsign, she has no proof that he'd be bad at it.
And assuming so make's her the asshole, not Jake.
The revelation leaves her a little down, and she jumps on Julia's idea to get a drink to dull the humiliation.
Inevitably, their conversation turns to lighter topics. Natasha, still single, is just tentatively, very tentatively considering thinking about this thing she's developing for Bob.
Julia just ended a never-quite-committed-to-the-relationship thing with an old squadmate and is debating if she wants to reconnect with an old ex. Her family's putting pressure on her to get married, and they'd prefer someone in the military. Since Julia's focus is her career, and they fully expect it to remain that way, she doesn't really care about the marriage demands, though Natasha is worried she'll settle and marry someone she can stand instead of someone she loves.
But Julia is lonely and wouldn't mind someone to come home to, even if it's not an epic love story, and Natasha is lonely too, so she gets it, even if she's not yet lonely enough to settle.
***
The negotiation goes down like this.
The day Javy and Jake return to North Island, they end up in a room with Cyclone and Cole, all four of them determined to hash it out before anyone higher ranked gets involved and none of them get what they want.
Cole, whose report on the mission was unabashedly critical of its leadership and surprisingly complementary of the pilots that actually flew, has already made circles in DC.
Beau's own report, itself surprising in how similar it is, is being held up in counterpoint, so Ice was able to buy them both a few days to settle the disagreement themselves.
Jake isn't opposed to the assignment as much as he's opposed to all his previous plans being ruined by what seems like a last-minute decision that could, and likely will, get reversed in the coming years.
The permanent Dagger squad seems like a good idea now because they've just proved their usefulness, but in a few years, it won't be the same. Top Gun has been an institution for decades without needing assistance, and there are already multiple special forces units that have their own dedicated air support. The funding and space needed for the daggers alone means their survival through a few fiscal years is limited unless a war kicks off, and they can be used more than once or twice a year.
It also ensures Jake won't make Squadron Commander without leaving the Daggers anyway because there will never be an equivalent rank in their chain.
Cyclone turns out to be surprisingly sympathetic, he had his own similar goals during his career, and he knows how limited the options become the higher you go.
Lemoore and North Island are closer than most options, which gives them a little leeway.
Just a little.
But enough.
Jake and Javy agree to help stand up the dagger squadron on North Island for a minimum of six months, with a possible extension if things aren't ready to hand off by then.
After that, they return to the Vigilantes, where Jake will take over as the official 2IC in preparation for his promotion to Captain the following year.
Squadron Commander a year after that, when Cole's own promotion comes in.
After that, they can talk again about where the daggers, and Vigilantes, and the Navy are.
None of them brings up the 40-year-old elephant in the room.
Beau and Cole refuse to acknowledge it, and Jake is confident he can achieve everything they're talking about before then.
If the timeline they've worked out actually sticks, he'll die as a Squadron Commander.
Javy's just determined to stay with Jake and turns down the request to be his 2IC because he knows that would be too much for the Daggers to take in one go, and Jake chooses Callie instead.
His personal relationship with Bradley bars him, and for the same reason, Natasha. She'd be great at it, but Jake's less confident about their ability to work together professionally than he is with Callie, who's already demonstrated similar work beliefs to Jake's.
As Cyclone gathers the others in a classroom with the news, Jake pulls Callie aside to make sure she's okay with it, and she nearly breaks his ribs with the force of her hug.
Jake has to take a moment to gather himself as he hears the other Daggers welcome Javy back with a cheer because Halo hugs just like Jordan did, with a hair too much strength, and it's too bad the world didn't work out for them.
They'd have been great together.
They're all seated when Jake and Callie finally walk in, Mav and Ice in the back with Hondo and Warlock and a few Top Gun instructors here to get a look at them.
And this is why Jake chooses Callie because she sweeps an arm out and introduces him.
"Ladies and gents, our esteemed Commander has a few words for us all before we kick this shit show off."
They both ignore Cyclone's pained groan.
"Bow down, mother fuckers."
***
Javy doesn't defend Jake at all when they tackle him at the Hard Deck later and toss him in the ocean.
***
Because standing up a new unit is an entirely different task than leading an established team, Jake doesn't have much time to learn to instruct at Top Gun, let alone actually fly.
He spends an annoying amount of time with Cyclone, trying to work out the left and right limits of their new unit without stepping on anyone's toes.
Or at least anyone's that they can't ignore.
There's a nightmarish amount of paperwork and handshaking, and there are a few days when Jake gets home and just doesn't want to talk to anyone.
Javy leaves him alone to decompress because Jake learns very quickly that he can't talk/vent/ask advice on the leadership thing with any of the Daggers but Javy.
For one, they're all too driven and ambitious, and smart. They're all looking for their own chances to lead, and they all have very specific ideas of how to do it, but with less experience than Jake has in actually doing so.
The downside, he's learned, to always being top of your class and possessing a natural affinity for something is forgetting what it's like for those who aren't and don't. Jake has to work his ass off to keep up still has to re-read things after work to understand the mechanics as easily as Bradley and, Logan and, Natasha, and Bob do.
They might be his friends, more in Bradley's case, but he's also the person charged with bringing them back alive in incredibly challenging situations, and the slightest inkling that he can't do that will be the rift that destroys them.
Javy is the lone exception. He's followed Jake so long, into such stupid situations before, that he's practically immune to it. And he still has no problem telling him when he's being an idiot.
Jake's lucky.
He knows it.
He got the chance to learn to lead outside of their insular little group. The rest of them are likely going to learn here, and it'll be a harder lesson than his.
There's a reason the military always tries to promote out instead of inside.
Two is that they're still new to each other despite their long history. They've been in and out of each other's lives for over a decade, but they've never lived in one another's pockets the way they are now. Working together and being friends outside of that doesn't give any of them much of a break from one another, and all those issues about Jake not mentioning his kids or his family are now front and center as they all learn more about one another than they ever really wanted to know.
Jake takes a vindictive kind of pleasure from it, never hesitating to say I told you so when it comes up, and after a few loud disagreements in the beginning, they work past it.
Three is all, Jake. He doesn't like mixing his personal and professional lives. It's complicated and messy, and distracting, and Jake has more important things to do with his time than constantly go around fixing little disagreements that never needed to happen in the first place.
He and Bradley quickly realize they need to keep to their initial agreement not to discuss work outside of business hours and never in bed.
It'll be interesting to see if they trust one another enough at work not to question one another as time goes on, but Jake is hopeful.
And Javy's always there to remind Bradley that he made his choice.
At some point, Jake knows he should stop and consider why Javy is so integral to his relationship with Bradley. That it can't possibly be healthy, but he always comes back around to the fact that Javy is integral to Jake, not the relationship, and Jake has no interest in ruining their lovingly co-dependent relationship now.
Bradley doesn't seem to have a problem with it anyway.
***
Bradley doesn't have a problem with it per se, but he also knows that sometimes you have to accept things you can't change in order to be happy.
It's easy to put aside the annoyance because he knows it comes from love and that while Javy might put him through the wringer, he'll also defend Bradley to anyone because of what he means to Jake.
It takes a while, but eventually, Bradley realizes that's what Ice and Mav were trying to teach him about family all along.
***
Jake has a terrifying brunch date with Ice, in which the older man apologizes for something Jake doesn't actually hold against him and then offers Jake tips on how to keep Mav in line because that's one challenge Jake hasn't even had the energy to think about yet.
He'd thrown Mav and Hondo at the issue of their planes, hangers, and maintenance, knowing it'd take them a while to get everything secured and up and running and buy Jake time to figure out to approach being Mav's boss.
He doesn't think Pete actually cares or that he'll be malicious on purpose, but Jake's young, and Mav was his instructor not that long ago, and it can be hard to adjust to such an abrupt switch in roles for both sides.
Tom's pleased that Jake isn't assuming trouble and confides that Pete's starting to think about retirement anyway because Tom is, and as long as Jake's straightforward, he and Pete won't have problems.
Maverick's always chaffed more under leaders who played games and manipulated than he has under those who are honest and willing to listen.
And he's distracted with Bradley right now, so the chances he's going to run off and do something stupid are slim.
Jake runs his plans for the squad by Tom, making a point to say it's just to get his personal opinion, not the approval of the COMPACFLT, and they're both pleased to realize they think along similar lines.
Tom insists on making the brunch date a weekly thing.
***
Later that night, as he's climbing into bed with Pete, he tells him that somehow, Jake and Bradley turned out to be perfect combinations of Pete and Tom in completely different ways.
And there's enough Goose in both of them to save them from each other.
Pete's just jealous that Tom's the one with the regular brunch date and sulks when Ice tells him it's for adults only.
***
The first few weeks are relatively quiet as everyone moves and gets settled in. Bradley's the only one without much of a move to take care of, so he's the first one to start as a guest instructor at Top Gun.
To his surprise, he enjoys teaching and finds the students easy to connect and communicate with.
It helps that rumors about their mission and what happened have started to circulate, and they're all eager to pick apart Bradley's mission experience.
Javy joins him soon after and makes a point to play bad cop to Bradley's good cop until Bob shows up and scares the crap out of the students who failed to notice him for a solid week.
One by one, the daggers learn to instruct and spend their afternoons brushing up on their own skills, running through mission scenarios that range from obvious to ridiculous.
Brigham and Ren are going strong long distance, and whenever she comes up to visit for the weekend, she brings Lily Grace and Dustin.
Bradley gets plenty of chances to bond with Dustin, who always follows Jake around like a shadow, but Lily Grace and Mav have apparently decided they're platonic soul mates and frequently ditch everyone else to go on adventures by themselves.
The first time Ice gets a call to come pick them up from a police station, he's not even surprised, and Beau loses a bet about how long it takes for them to get caught.
They get banned from the San Diego Zoo for life for that stunt.
Because Lily Grace and Dustin always stay with the Simpsons when they visit, Bradley, Pete, and Tom learn more than they ever wanted to know about raising teenage girls into young women, and Pete walks away with a lot more respect for Beau.
Bradley wonders more and more if Jake was like Dustin when he was that age, but Javy's quick to disabuse that notice.
Jake was a holy terror compared to Dustin, and Peter calls with plenty of stories to share about Jake's hell-raising early years.
Bradley doesn't hesitate to share a few of them with the Daggers, who take every chance they can to laugh at their impeccably put-together Commander.
Even Celia chimes in and comes up a few times to visit in person, though she and Javy inevitably disappear together for the majority of her trips.
Celia tells him what to do with the authority of the mother of Jake's children and the First Lady of the Seresin family. She might as well be the Empress and Bradley the awkward son-in-law who has to cow-toe to avoid being executed.
She knows Bradley has to get her blessing, or Jake will never get serious.
Bradley knows it, too.
And finds he doesn't actually mind.
She's exactly what he imagines it would take to raise a family with Jake and run a successful ranch (he knows nothing about ranching besides what he's seen in movies and on that short trip to Texas, but it seems extremely difficult), and he finds himself wondering if people thought the same thing about his mom and dad.
If anyone thinks that about Bradley and Jake?
***
So, here's the thing.
It's like this.
Jake believes in hard work and responsibility.
If you're supposed to be at work, you work. If you are supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, you're there at that time.
Stress can be managed, and a balanced life can be achieved without sacrificing either of these principles.
Mental health days are for dealing with depression, PTSD, or appointments for dealing with any other legitimate, diagnosed mental health issue.
They are not for those days when you just didn't feel like going to work or felt stressed out and thought you needed a break.
Bradley disagrees.
It's the first big fight of their relationship, and it splits the Daggers down the middle.
Jake is a taskmaster. He knows it. Learned the hard way during his first years with the Vigilantes that not everyone felt the same, and Jake had to learn to take these situations on a case-by-case basis instead of just one rule to bind them all.
And it's not that Bradley's lazy. Or Mickey, or Logan, or Nat. They just think that life is as much about enjoyment and fun as it is about work and responsibility and that which one has priority changes day to day.
Jake is all for fun and enjoyment, but it never comes before work and responsibility.
It's a stupid fight that doesn't do more than spark lively debate at the Hard Deck after work for a few weeks, but it's still the first time Jake and Bradley run into a basic, philosophical difference about life.
It's ironic because their beliefs come from the same experiences. Losses early in life of close family members.
And it illustrates the influence that family, even those dead, have on those left to continue on.
The Seresins embraced the legacy.
The Bradshaw embraced the moments.
Jake and Bradley are old enough now to realize that neither is wrong or right, so they might snip at each other over it every once and a while, but they work through it easily enough, and Bradley keeps his mouth shut when Jake writes up the student who skipped class because they were feeling stressed and down.
Bradley starts working his way through the list of dates he wants to take Jake on.
Starting with evenings on the pier and early morning runs on the beach (which Jake doesn't think counts as dates, but Bradley disagrees).
He looks for restaurants neither of them has been to and manages to pry Jake away for a few weekend trips.
Bradley makes a joke about Javy chaperoning them once, and Jake walks out while they're in the middle of making progressively more ridiculous threats toward one another concerning Jake's honor.
Nat brings her roommate from the Academy around, and Bradley's pleasantly surprised to realize he and Julia can fall back into friendship like they were never considering more.
Javy doesn't seem to like her, but the other man shrugs it off when he asks, admitting he doesn't actually know her that well and that it's probably just stupid.
***
It doesn't occur to any of them that her few visits to the Hard Deck somehow come on the nights Jake's not there.
Some twisted effort by fate to put off the inevitable.
***
Bradley was born on a hot August day, early in the morning, just after first light.
Pete and Nick had been passed out in the hallway when it really kicked off and had fallen out of their chairs in surprise when Carole started yelling.
Unbeknownst to him, he shared a birthday with the middle middle middle Seresin, Jessie. Born three weeks to the year after Michael.
The poster child of middle child syndrome, Jessie had nevertheless been a happy-go-lucky child until high school when his best friend died of a drug overdose.
The normally chipper Jessie had grown eerily silent in the months that followed, scarring the shit out of his family.
His path in life was set after that, dreams of the military giving way to a badge and an application to the DEA, and he'd never looked back.
He'd never gotten that carefree laugh back either, but eventually, he'd started smiling again.
And he'd always remained close to his best friend's family.
Jake and Javy and Celia were on the wrong end of many of his spiels about drinking and drugs when they reached high school, not that they'd ever done anything stupider than drinking with friends.
Jessie had been leading a raid near the border the day he died. A cartel was trying to move truckloads of heroin into Texas but hadn't been careful enough with their secrets, and Jessie and his task force had been waiting.
It was his birthday.
Celebrated that morning by his teammates with a candle in a stack of pancakes before they headed out.
He'd woken to dozens of texts from his family with happy wishes for the day.
And he'd texted Brian good luck for his ride and Michael to be careful as always.
And Jordan and Peter to be safe in training.
And Jake to not be stupid and Javy to not let Jake do something stupid.
Two hours later, he'd taken six rounds, one of which clipped his carotid, shoving a rookie sheriff's deputy out of the way.
Then sent him home to the ranch in an oak casket draped with a flag and a box full of medals.
The same day, Bradley stopped talking to Mav and Ice.
Hot August days, it seems.
They get Bradley in the end.
Just like they got Brian and Michael and Jessie, long before Bradley knew who any of them were.
Peter dies on one, too.
~tbc~